Beneficial mutations within a bacterial population accumulate during evolution, but performance tends to reach a plateau. Consequently, theoretical evolutionary models need to take into account a "braking effect" in expected ...
Evolution
Jun 8, 2011
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The question of how life began on a molecular level has been a longstanding problem in science. However, recent mathematical research sheds light on a possible mechanism by which life may have gotten a foothold in the chemical ...
Biochemistry
Nov 26, 2012
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The more complex a plant or animal, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. That's been a maxim of evolutionary theory since biologist Ronald Fisher put forth the idea in 1930.
Evolution
Sep 27, 2010
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Manipulation is often thought of as morally repugnant, but it might be responsible for the evolutionary origins of some helpful or altruistic behavior, according to a new study.
Plants & Animals
Aug 19, 2013
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Double flowers—though beautiful—are mutants. The genetic interruption that causes that mutation previously helped scientists pinpoint the genes for normal development of flower sexual organs in Arabidopsis thaliana. Now ...
Evolution
Sep 4, 2012
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Most animals, like humans, have separate sexes — they are born, live out their lives and reproduce as one sex or the other. However, some animals live as one sex in part of their lifetime and then switch ...
Feb 2, 2009
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When anthropologists consider the origins of warfare, their evolutionary theories tend to boil it down to the resource-scarcity trifecta of food, territory and mates—three resources that would justify the loss of life and ...
Evolution
Jul 1, 2019
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Taxonomy, the study of how living organisms relate to one another as species, has been around since the 1700s. Though scientists and philosophers have long debated what makes a species a species, taxonomists treat each species ...
Evolution
Mar 29, 2022
0
25
(PhysOrg.com) -- Why did Barack Obama win the US election and did the fact he is over six feet tall influence the voters? The authors of a paper published in Current Biology this month argue that due to 'a hangover from our ...
Social Sciences
Oct 21, 2009
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Since the days of Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have widely believed that most new species form because they've adapted to different environments—but a new University of Toronto study suggests otherwise.
Plants & Animals
Jan 3, 2023
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